NCJ Number
98599
Date Published
1985
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This film dramatizes the dynamics of wife abuse in a middle-class family as well as the civil and criminal remedies pursued by the wife to secure protection for herself and her children.
Abstract
In introducing the dramatization, the narrator notes that 1 out of 5 murders involves a victim and offender who are intimately related. He advises that violent behavior is learned through imitation. The dramatization portrays the situational stress on both spouses that leads to interpersonal conflict escalating into the husband's assaulting the wife. After calling the police out of fear for her life, the wife refuses to lodge a criminal complaint against her husband, even after the police advise her that she has the right to do so. The husband trivializes the incident. Subsequently, the wife seeks counseling from an attorney, who obtains an emergency protection order that requires the husband to vacate the house. A full protection order is subsequently issued by the court, requiring the husband to provide child support and to have no contact with his wife. He violates the order and again assaults his wife. Although she is still reluctant to bring a criminal complaint, she is advised by a victim advocate that the violent behavior will probably continue unless criminal sanctions are applied. The case goes to trial before a judge, and the husband is convicted of criminal assault and given a 6-months suspended sentence of incarceration. The suspension is conditioned on the husband's going into counseling for a year or until the counselor deems him to be in control of his violent urges.